We used to say we owned the night, and we owned the night for two reasons. First, superior technology that allowed us to see the world in bright green light. Second, we had superior training. Today we are going to talk about the technology side of owning the night. We aren’t talking night vision, though, and we are talking about one of the best weapon lights currently on the market, the Cloud Defensive Rein Micro.
Cloud Defensive makes three of the best weapon lights with the Rein, Rein Micro, and the OWL. These lights maximize power and blow away the very best lights from companies like Surefire. In fact, they make Surefire lights feel old when you compare the various power levels of the best Surefire with the weakest Cloud Defensive light.
What’s the Cloud Defensive Rein Micro
The Rein Micro is the slightly lighter, more compact version of the Rein. Don’t let the name Micro full you. The Rein Micro is a rifle light. It’s no slouch by any means. However, when compared to the Rein, the Micro cuts a fair bit of size and weight.
The Rein Micro packs a lumen-powered punch with 1,300 lumens backed by 55,000 candela. Cloud Defensive puts a healthy focus on lumens, but candela is their game. Cloud Defensive says that ‘The industry talks lumens, professionals talk candela.’
Mixing high levels of candela and lumens gives you an unbeatable source of light that can power through the darkness. Candela is useable light that takes those lumens and puts them to work. High levels of lumens mean nothing without the power of candela to back them up. The Cloud Defensive Rein Micro packs enough of both to make the light an unbeatable option for rifles.
All the Power!
What do all these lumens and candela mean to the end-user? Well, first, the Rein Micro provides an insane amount of range to your light. It’s truly a light that can work with a rifle and maximize its effective range. Cloud Defensive designed the beam to reach out several hundred yards, and to be completely fair, the best way to use the Rein Micro is with a magnified optic.
With the Rein Micro, I can see and gain positive identification of a target from 200 yards away with a magnified optic. Imagine some terrorist or insurgent is sprinting across a field. You have to confirm he has a rifle before you take that shot. The Rein Micro allows you to do so.
That’s a ton of power for a relatively small weapon-mounted light. With all that power and a single 18350 battery, the run time is 40 minutes at full power. However, it will provide three hours of useable light at a lower level.
The combination of lumens and candela also allows you to overcome photonic barriers with ease. A photonic barrier is created by another light source. Again, imagine a truck pulls up at your vehicle checkpoint with its high beams on. The Rein Micro can overpower those high beams and light up the driver, and effectively blind them. That power chews through smoke, dust, and fog as well, and the Cloud Defensive Rein Micro overpowers the competition and brutally beats it down.
Ergonomics
The Cloud Defensive Rein Micro comes with a rear tail cap and Picatinny mount stock. This clicky little button is quite tactile making it easy to press and activate the light. This gives you an out-of-the-box option for engaging the light and using it for your various mission sets.
The complete kit includes the fantastic 3rd Gen Light Control System. This is a two-button pressure switch. One button allows for constant On, and the other allows for momentary. The buttons provide excellent feedback and make controlling the light very easy.
The light weighs 5.75 ounces, and when mounted to the front of the gun, the weapon doesn’t feel off-balanced by any means. The light is 4.91 inches long and is made from 6061-T6 aluminum. It’s a sturdy light that Cloud Defensive built strong enough to be used as a hammer. It can be submerged, thrown, tossed, and will easily withstand the recoil of any weapon it’s attached to.
Light It Up
The Cloud Defensive Rein Micro packs a punch. It’s the most compact, highest-powered weapon light currently on the market. This is a bang-up light that can meet the mission set of the world’s most elite operators and that of the average guy looking to defend his home. Powerhouse is a word we toss around way too much, but the Rein is a true powerhouse.
